Image source @ Visual China
Wen | Zheng Guangtao Grant
In 2000, McKinsey & Company proposed the concept of "Digital Branding" in the McKinsey Quarterly, which issued the first dawn of digital marketing at the dawn of the Internet.
After 20 years, with the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, digital link marketing has finally become a major topic in the corporate conference room. Companies want to increase their return of marketing investment (ROMI) through digital links. As Werner Mack famously put it: "I know half of my advertising dollars are wasted, but I don't know which half is wasted." ”
This point echoes the voice of enterprises for the unity of product and effect. But in essence, it is unrealistic to combine product and effect. The brand focuses on the front link, affects consumer cognition, and allows consumers to understand, trust and love the brand; while the effect focuses on the back link, affecting the purchase of consumers, allowing consumers to quickly complete the process of clicking, consulting and placing an order. There is a misalignment of the marketing characteristics of the front and back links.
In fact, the waste of marketing investment is nothing more than because the customer psychology and behavior link do not form a good match with the company's marketing decisions.
The customer psychology link can be traced back to 1898, when the American advertising scientist E.S. Lewis proposed the AIDMA model of consumer behavior patterns: Attention, Interest, Desire, Memory, and Action. It describes the entire mental process of a consumer purchasing a commodity.
However, in the Internet environment, the AIDMA model is difficult to accurately explain the behavior path of consumers. In 2005, Dentsu Advertising proposed the AISAS model based on the Internet communication environment: Attention, Interest, Search, Action, and Share. This matches the abstract customer psychology link with the behavior link monitored by the available data, thereby guiding the decision-making of the company's marketing behavior.
So how should companies use link marketing to guide their growth strategies? This article explores the following three issues:
(1) What are the typical models of link marketing?
(2) How to use the coherence of the front and back links to improve marketing efficiency?
(3) How to grasp the opportunity of front-to-back link fusion marketing?
01 Typical model of link marketing
Traditional marketing methods pay attention to exposure and conversion, exposure represents brand effect, conversion represents sales effect, this rough analysis dimension lacks meticulous marketing insight. However, the emergence of marketing links divides this dimension into finer granularity, which can more accurately diagnose the current situation of marketing.
Philip Kotler, the "father of modern marketing", proposed the user path 5A model in the digital age - Awareness, Appeal, Ask, Act and Advocate, which enterprises can use to track marketing effects through full links and scenarios, and optimize marketing behavior in a targeted manner.
5A link marketing tasks in each link
Consumers will advance along the 5A path in the process of touching the brand, but the 5A stage is not a straight line, and consumers may skip some stages. For example, consumers are not initially attracted to a brand, but buy directly because of a friend's recommendation.
Since each link of 5A occupies a different important position in the marketing of different categories and brands, it is necessary to clarify the focus of the link when marketing, and spend the marketing money on the "blade". According to the category and brand differences, link marketing can be divided into four models.
[1] Link marketing model 1: doorknob type - ordinary FMCG
Some ordinary FMCG products, such as toilet paper, pure water, etc., belong to the category of weak product differentiation, high familiarity and high-frequency consumption. Consumers don't spend time investigating and comparing the differences between different brands, and because the price is low, there are no safety risks.
Consumers often generate buying behavior based on their familiarity with the brand and the ease they get. The focus of such a category marketing link is not Appeal, Ask and Advocate, but Awareness and Act, that is, everywhere, see and buy, corresponding to the marketing strategy, the brand to seize the mind, the channel to deep distribution.
Therefore, for doorknobs - ordinary FMCG, such brands should focus on brand cognitive media and sales performance media when link marketing. Brand-based media can establish brand recognition, increase consumer familiarity, and enable consumers to quickly buy without thinking with their first impression when making decisions, forming habits. Sales performance media can cover the customer population with high density, provide convenience of purchase, and quickly harvest orders.
[2] Link marketing model 2: goldfish - enterprise products, industrial products
Enterprise products and industrial products usually belong to the category of large expenditure, the chain of procurement decisions is long, and the decisions of their customers are mainly rational, such as enterprise software, manufacturing equipment, etc. At this time, customers need a lot of brand information as a reference, and even refer to other people's word-of-mouth suggestions. Such category link marketing needs to strengthen the Awareness and Ask links, and relatively weaken the Appeal, Act and Advocate links.
For example, in addition to dominating the screen elevator advertisement and strengthening the unique cognition of "checking the company, checking the boss, checking the relationship", Tianyan Enterprise Service is also vigorously laying out various types of search advertisements, which are infiltrated in various network information.
Therefore, for goldfish - enterprise products, industrial products, such brands should focus on brand cognitive media and information search media when link marketing. Brand cognitive media can establish a breakthrough in cognition, convey the core advantages of the brand to customers, and then lay out a large amount of knowledge information through information search media, so that customers can have sufficient reasons to buy your brand.
[3] Link marketing model 3: horn type - expensive consumer goods
Luxury consumer goods include luxury goods, mid-to-high-end cars and other high-priced consumer goods. The spiritual value of such consumer goods occupies a very important position for users, and the connotation of brand expression has become the core basis for consumption decisions. Because such a brand has a strong appeal, consumers will yearn for and recommend the brand even when they are not buying and using it.
In other words, there are more advocates of this type of brand than there are actual buyers. After all, there are more people who like Ferrari, and fewer people who can afford it. Such category link marketing should establish strong cognition and attractiveness, and strive to capture a large number of public-level fans and trigger word-of-mouth recommendations.
For example, smart cars such as Xiaopeng usually display the high-end and extraordinary momentum of the car through outdoor large-screen billboards, and highlight superior performance and driving experience through dynamic video advertisements such as CCTV and elevator advertisements.
Therefore, for trumpet-type consumer goods, such brands should focus on brand cognitive media, cautious use of sales effect media and various promotional activities when link marketing. Brand cognitive media can create a high-end, positive image, maintain a high price, while maintaining a smooth and thoughtful sales and service link of the channel, of course, do not deliberately pursue promotional effects, after all, the face of these categories is often more important than the wallet.
[4] Link marketing model 4: funnel - planned products, durable goods, services
The marketing chain for this type of product is similar to that of a traditional sales funnel, where most of the purchases are planned and typically occur in durable goods and service industries such as tires, furniture, decoration, etc. It's also the only mode that requires customers to go through every step of the 5A link.
Such a category needs to optimize the marketing link in an all-round way and maintain the smooth progress of each link link. Therefore, for funnels – planned products, durable goods, services – such brands must be able to coordinate the experience of multiple touchpoints such as advertising (knowing and attracting), website and customer service (inquiry), sales channels (action) and after-sales service (advocacy).
02 Front and back link integration marketing
Marketing in the Internet age is basically content-oriented. From this point of view, the front link includes forwarding, liking, commenting, participating, etc., which are content interaction behaviors, such as you are interested in the Piaorou "18-year-old college entrance examination documentary" advertising film, so you forward interaction on Weibo and the circle of friends.
And then the link includes powder, direct purchase, to the store, registration, etc., which are closer to the commodity trading behavior. For example, Li Jiaqi recommended a lipstick live broadcast, which not only achieved sales conversion, but also attracted many fans to pay attention to its Tmall flagship store.
In the past link marketing, from seeing the advertisement to entering the store to buy, the front and back links experienced a long time, which was a long-distance race. How to shorten the time, shorten the link, and carry out more direct and rapid contact with consumers is more important.
However, in today's marketing environment, public domain traffic to private domain traffic, brand media to sales channels, gradually formed a trend of integration and integration. When considering the marketing link, enterprises need to connect the layout on all aspects of the front and back links. This is a significant difference from the traditional era of marketing models.
For example, more than a decade ago, Mengniu yogurt was named "Super Girl", in addition to the naming cost of 14 million yuan, it also needs to spend huge funds to support other marketing activities, such as outdoor advertising, TV advertising, product packaging, store activities, press releases, etc., but the front and back links are separate, and an integrated marketing link has not yet been formed between the links.
In recent years, Mengniu Chunzhen has named "Creation Camp", in addition to the comprehensive layout of elevator advertising, TV advertising and e-commerce activities, it will also open up various marketing links to form the effect of integrated linkage of front and back links.
Pure Zhen Xiao Brute Waist held a "support activity", student fans can buy Pure Zhen Xiao Man Waist to vote for the students, a bottle of Pure Zhen Small Wild Waist can vote 4 votes. Fans can understand the support activities according to the oral broadcast and picture in the "Creation Camp" program, and then open the WeChat Mini Program to complete the voting, if there is a lack of votes, they will directly jump to the Mini Program Mall to buy pure Zhen Xiao Brute Waist, and fans can scan the code to vote for the students after receiving the product.
In this way, the front and back links have moved from fragmentation to integration, the distance between product and effect is closer, and the synergy effect in marketing is more significant. This is the core trend of link marketing.
03 Integration of front and back link marketing effects
In the past, we believed that Internet media was closer to the sales end, and after seeing the advertisement, it could be purchased by clicking on the order, and the conversion from front link to back link was more efficient. However, with the popularity of Internet media, the drawbacks of various ways of playing have gradually emerged.
First, Internet media traffic fraud is becoming increasingly serious. The Seconds system estimates that the loss caused by abnormal traffic in China's brand advertising market in 2020 will be about 30.5 billion yuan, which will continue to rise compared with 2019 and 2018. Among them, abnormal traffic on social platforms accounts for more than 50%, and the average invalid fans of KOLs account for up to 60%.
Second, the Internet membership service reduces the efficiency of traffic marketing. With the increase in Internet member users, and the relatively high-end membership population, these member users will not watch patch ads at all.
According to the second hand system, the membership payment market size of the online video industry in 2020 reached 62.7 billion yuan, with a growth rate of up to 20%, and the digital advertising traffic that can be monitored in the past two years has shown a significant downward trend. (Therefore, some video sites also need to insert patch ads for paid membership users)
Third, the Fragmentation of Internet Media, the increase in advertising antipathy, and the weakening of marketing effects. Quest Mobile data shows that the number of mobile apps installed by netizens continues to grow, averaging 23.6 in 2019, and each personal device is exposed to advertising more than 10 times a day.
In the Internet media, consumers understand brand information through Internet platforms and KOLs, and almost all the brand information that needs independent memory and analysis is outsourced, and the cloud package is given to computers and other people's brains, which is not conducive to the brand being deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. A 2011 study in the journal Science showed that if people receive information stored in computers, they are less and less effective at remembering it.
In this case, brands and advertisers have to explore more efficient link marketing media forms. With the popularity of mobile Internet and the improvement of logistics networks, the convenience of shopping is getting higher and higher. Therefore, the offline brand media that were originally far from the sales channels are becoming more and more effective in promoting sales conversion under the blessing of the Internet.
In the past, there was a time and space gap between consumers from seeing brand advertising to retail terminals, and brand advertising was difficult to advance to the back link of retail terminals as a front link. But now, after consumers have formed brand cognition and preferences through brand advertising, they can search for and buy at any time on their mobile phones. The marketing effect of the front and back links is gradually integrated, and the brand media is no longer just an empty slogan and a loudspeaker without effect.
According to the cooperative research results of the second hand system and Focus Media, the life circle media can realize real-time monitoring of advertising and marketing by relying on the data technology behind it, and the media screen can be linked, and the experimental comparison found that consumers who have seen the life circle media than the life circle media can bring more sales conversions to the brand than those who have not seen the life circle media, the active search rate has increased by 3 times, and the transaction rate has increased by about 40%. As a result, more and more brands are turning to the marketing methods of brand media such as elevators and televisions.
This also explains why more and more companies and even investors are paying more attention to the value of brand media. The 2021 China Digital Marketing Trends Report shows that in 2021, the importance of brands is more recognized, and 80% of marketing executives agree very much that "in the digital age, brands are very important".
04 Final words
In the digital age, link marketing has become the basic skill of enterprises. With the maturity of the technology and method of link marketing, more enterprises will adopt scientific growth tools and strategies in the future. Optimizing the model of the marketing link, the integration of the front and back links, and the integration of the marketing effect of the front and back links will point out a development path that can be used as a reference and multiplex for the enterprise.